Quoted from Stanley Burnham's 3rd edition of America's Bimodal Crisis:
Black Intelligence in White Society, Foundation for Human Understanding,
Athens, Georgia, 1993, p 51.
Social oppression [among negroes] was much worse [in Africa] than generallyrecognized today. Polygamy was universal, and wives and children could bekilled at the husband's discretion, as documented in Achebe's first novel,Things Fall Apart* (1959), which tells of his own grandfather's hatchetingto death his adopted son at the demand of a tribal council simply to demonstratehis respect for a local witch doctor. Such sacrifice seems to have beencommonplace. Moreover, anybody could be killed or subjected to slavery atthe command of a king or emperor, and this power was often abused to anextraordinary degree.
*Achebe, C. Things Fall Apart. New York: Astor-Honor, 1959.
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